Are you Steel or Glass?

We All Have Faced Some Adversity

I haven’t met a person yet that has found a way to truly live carefree 100% of the time. I’ve talked with multi-millionaires (at work), the extremely famous, and the extremely talented, even near geniuses… all of them still had problems that came up through the course of their lives (and continued to come as long as they are alive). Thus, the conclusion I came to was that regardless of status, age, race, class, or gifting… adversity has no respect of person, it will forever be a part of this human existence.

Adversity Reveals Our Core

Be that as it may, I am thankful for this truth. Not because I am a hater and want everyone who has ever walked the face of this earth to struggle as I have struggled. Nope that’s not it at all. I’m excited about this fact because I know that it is adversity (not prosperity) that reveals the core of a person. I believe Francis Bacon said it best:

While prosperity best discovers vice, adversity best discovers virtue, and the virtue that comes from adversity is fortitude. The good things, which belong to prosperity, are to be wished, but the good things, which belong to adversity, are to be admired. Therefore we know not of our own strength that has not met adversity.

Francis Bacon

Adversity Will Strengthen You

As each of us face another day in which we probably have yet to reach perfection in every area of our life… smile! Let us embrace the fact that we are being sharpened (not shattered) by the pressures of life. All things are working together for our good! Once the pressure is released from our current situation we will not only know our existing strength but also become acutely aware of new strength that was born out of the process of being sharpened. So, I conclude by asking “will you embrace the qualities of steel -or- those of glass?”

The same hammer that breaks the glass, also sharpens the steel. -Bob Johnson, Ex President of BET